AFRICA NEWS DIGEST
Will NEPAD 'Suck the Blood' Out of Newborn African Union?
An insightful news article by Ochieng' Rapuro in a major Kenyan publication, the East African Standard, on July 1, reports on the fact that the South African city of Durban becomes the midwife into whose hands the new pan-African initiative, the African Union, will be born, and offers a hypothesis that may be on target. "There are fears that" just as "'external forces' were instrumental in whittling down the original African Union projectas envisaged by visionary pan-Africanists such as Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, Tanzania's Mwalimu Nyerere and Abdel Nasser of Egypt in 1963to a toothless OAU [Organization of Africa Unity], the 'foreign partners' may work through NEPAD [New Partnership for African Development] to dilute the substance of the AU."
Elaborating on the history of the interface between the African "development" plan, NEPAD, and the African Union, Rapuro continues: "Although born out of such noble intentions, observers are increasingly getting worried that NEPAD might just turn out to be the beast that will suck the blood of potency out of the AU.... Last December, for example, NEPAD all out of the blue came up with a 15-member committee to monitor its implementation. The committee, comprised of the Heads of State of the five originators of the program (South Africa, Senegal, Algeria, Egypt and Nigeria) and two additional members each from the five regions, has crafted out of the original mandate a grotesque animal that is now threatening to overshadow the AU."
Mugabe Warns He Will Nationalize Food Profiteers
President Robert Mugabe has threatened to nationalize one of Zimbabwe's largest companies, National Foods, which is majority owned by Anglo American Corp. Zimbabwe's Sunday Mail of June 30 reported the President singled out National Foods, for "sabotaging the economy." Speaking to a meeting of his ruling ZANU-PF Party, Mugabe said: "We will ask National Foods and Anglo American, which is owned by Nick Oppenheimer, to tell the nation why they have been hoarding salt and causing shortages of basic commodities."
He added, "We will not allow Anglo American to become the principal saboteurs of our economy." Anglo American would be asked whether it wanted to operate "in partnership with the government and people"; if they did not, he said, the government would be compelled to take over the enterprises and transfer them to local people. "Our people will not hide salt to create shortages."
The Sunday Mail reported that police had confiscated 22 tons of salt in a National Food depot in the northern town of Hwange. It quoted a police spokesman as saying that officers stopped workers who were about to burn the salt, "in a suspected act of economic sabotage and political mischief." The company is being charged with hoarding under the Control of Goods Act.
Assassination Threat Against Zambian President for Opposing IMF Corruption
On June 29, details emerged of a plot to topple and assassinate Zambia's President Levy Mwanawasa, because of his campaign to pursue the massive corruption of his pro-IMF predecessor, Frederick Chiluba, who is accused of plundering the country. Mwanawasa, who just returned from studying irrigation technology in Libya, is broadening his attack on Chiluba. So far, $36 million has been discovered in a London bank account and the former head of Security Intelligence, Xavier Chungu, who was instrumental in the transfers, is under arrest.
Students at the University of Zambia, during a Presidential visit on June 28, held up a banner reading "Bring Chiluba to court... No one is above the law." Mwanawasa addressed the duties of the University's new Chancellor and of the students, at the Chancellor's inauguration, and called on the students to be "militant and radical."
Zambia's first and long-serving President, Kenneth Kaunda, from the opposing party to that of Mwanawasa and Chiluba's MMD, is strongly defending Mwanawasa. On June 29, Kuanda called a plot to topple Mwanawasa's regime and kill him "Satanic," and demanded the arrest of all those involved. In effect, elder statesman Kaunda is riding shotgun in support of Mwanawasa.
In Oslo, on June 26, Kaunda lashed out at Chiluba and others: "Let the Zambian people impress upon those who have been bribed and corrupted to resign their positions before the Mwanawasa Administration moves in on them, as I am sure that it will." He emphasized that Zambia needs a cleanup of its judiciary, special branch (security police), police, and army, because they had become rotten arms of the executive, and called for the resignation of Chief Justice Matthew Ngulube.
Chiluba, when he assumed the Presidency in 1992, promised full cooperation with the IMF, and indeed privatized the state sector, eliminated food subsidies, and cut support to agriculture. Mwanawasa and Kaunda opposed these policies. In October 1997, after the government sold off the copper fields to Anglo American Corp. and Phelps Dodge, a military coup sought to oust Chiluba, but failed after several hours.
Mwanawasa reminded MMD Party cadres at the party secretariat on June 26, that in 1995 he had told them that the Chiluba leadership had to be replaced, and that in 1994 he had resigned as Zambia's Vice President and reverted to a simple party member because the MMD leadership had betrayed the people. In Oslo, Kaunda declared, "The nation was in another mood when it couldn't listen to me, when I warned [in 1991] that they would be putting into power a pathological liar, a thief, corrupt and decayed President, if they voted into office Mr. Chiluba," who was then chairman of the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).
Thailand To Export Anti-AIDS Drug Knowhow to Africa
At less than a dollar a day, Thailand produces the world's cheapest anti-AIDS drugs, and is now set to provide both the drugs and the technology to Africa on a large scale. Along with India and Brazil, Thailand has become a global pioneer in the production of generic anti-AIDS medicines, thanks largely to Dr. Krisana Kraisintu, who started research in Thailand in 1992. Working at the Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO) where she heads the research and development division, Krisana was by 1995 overseeing production of 21 drugs whose patents had either expired or never existed.
"It's not technology transfer in a way that Thailand is giving them facilities," Krisana said. "They have everything. We'll just tell them what to do." The plan, which took form in April 2001, is to choose countries spread around the continent to act as production centers which can export to up to 12 neighbouring nations. Memorandums of understanding have been drafted and are waiting to be signed between Thailand and both Zimbabwe and Ghana. If all goes well, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nigeria will follow.
Krisana has already negotiated prices for raw materialswhich make up 80% of the costfar below what the GPO pays its suppliers in India and Korea who heeded appeals to make discounts on humanitarian grounds. The antiretroviral (ARV) drug stavudine originally cost $2.09 a dose. "Our product costs eight centsthat's 26 times as cheap. And if these drugs were produced in African countries, they would be cheaper than this," she said.
GPO managing director Thongchai Thavichachart said: "We will be happy to help [them] to produce, rather than to buy from us. It will last longerit's self-help," he said. "We will not charge anything to any government.... I would like to urge the world, I would like to push other countries to have this kind of production."
The GPO made world headlines in March when it announced it would start selling the world's cheapest triple-therapy ARV drug, known as GPO-VIR. It sells for $27 per month, or less than a dollar a day. Previously, a similar regimen cost up to $240 a month.
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